Marketable assets

Eligibility criteria

In order to be eligible as collateral for Eurosystem credit operations, marketable assets must comply with the eligibility criteria as laid down in the
"General framework"
. Additional temporary measures on collateral eligibility are laid down in the
“Temporary framework”
, and are applicable until further notice.

Schematic overview
(further details are set out in the General Documentation)

Place of settlement: euro area
Instruments must be centrally deposited in book-entry form with NCBs or an SSS positively assessed by the Eurosystem pursuant to the standards and assessment procedures described in the Eurosystem User Assessment Framework

Type of issuer / debtor / guarantors

Central banks
Public sector, Private sector, International and supranational institutions

Proactive assessment by NCBs once the asset is issued

Prior to the publication on the ECB website in the list of eligible marketable assets, national central banks (NCBs) proactively assess the eligibility of the marketable assets. The NCB of the country where the asset is admitted to trading on a regulated market or traded on a non-regulated market is responsible for the assessment of the eligibility of the marketable asset.

The eligibility assessment process only begins once the asset is issued and all the necessary documentation mentioned below is available to the respective NCB. Both NCBs and ECB do not confirm the eligibility of an asset prior to its issuance.

Once the assessment procedure is completed, the marketable asset will be included in the list of eligible marketable assets provided it complies with the ECB’s eligibility criteria.

In case a marketable asset does not appear on the list of eligible marketable assets, but you believe it should be there, please
contact the national central bank
of the country in which the asset is admitted to trading on a or traded on an acceptable non-regulated market. In this case, the following information could be provided to the responsible NCB in order to facilitate the assessment procedure:

Letters of rating from the rating agencies,

Rating agencies pre-sale reports (not the rating agencies web pages),

Final offering circulars for the transaction,

ISIN codes of the security, Reuters/Bloomberg page codes,

Confirmation of New Global Note (NGN) form, if applicable. (1)

(1) The NGN criterion only applies to international debt instruments in global bearer which are issued through the ICSD’s with XS ISIN codes. The NGN requirement does not pertain to domestic securities issued through domestic CSD’s or individual bearer or global registered international securities.

Acceptable markets

One eligibility criterion for marketable assets is that the debt instrument must be admitted to trading on a regulated market as defined in the Directive 2004/39/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 April 2004 on markets in financial instruments, or traded on certain non-regulated markets specified by the ECB.

Regulated markets

The European Commission publishes a list of all regulated markets in the Official Journal of the European Union at least once a year. In addition, the list of regulated markets is also made available on its website.

Non-regulated markets

The assessment of non-regulated markets is made by the Eurosystem and is based on three principles: safety, transparency, and accessibility.

The three principles are defined by the Eurosystem exclusively in terms of the performance of the Eurosystem’s collateral management function. The selection process is not aimed at assessing the intrinsic quality of the various markets.

Safety is taken to mean certainty with regard to transactions, in particular certainty on the validity and enforceability of transactions.

Transparency is taken to mean unimpeded access to information on the market’s rules of procedure and operation, the financial features of the assets, the price formation mechanism, and the relevant prices and quantities (quotes, interest rates, trading volumes, outstanding amounts, etc.).

Accessibility refers to the Eurosystem’s ability to take part in and have access to the market; a market is accessible for collateral management purposes if its rules of procedure and operation allow the Eurosystem to obtain information and conduct transactions when needed for these purposes. The current list of non-regulated markets which are deemed to comply with these three principles are listed in the table below.

Current list of non-regulated markets accepted by the ECB (updated: 16 January 2015)